The theme of this year's painting clearly states one - the makeup of desire. People's various desires are wrapped under various makeups. Desires are the intertwining of happiness and pain in life. Either straightforward or subtle, they will appear in makeup, forming a profound look of an era.
Inches: 23.6 x 23.6 in
Size without the frame: 60 x 60 cm
Country: China
Date: 2024
Materials: Acrylic paint on Wood Panel
Condition: well preserved
Creative themes and style | My works revolve around the creative concept of "The land of humanity, People on the land".The people in the painting are people in nature, and the lines, shapes, and colors are close to nature. The nature in the painting is nature in the eyes of humans, existing in interaction with humans.I don’t pursue a series of works with a fixed and continuous style. I hope that the style of the pictures will synchronize with the changes in my life and always remain oscillating. The performance of the work must be in sync with the development of one's own life in order to be Sincere and powerful.Ideas are later.
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Overall Atmosphere and Expression
This portrait is built upon emotional tension and distortion, creating a powerful psychological resonance. The figure’s features are stretched and reshaped, rejecting naturalistic depiction in favor of symbolic exaggeration. The slightly furrowed brows, narrowed eyes, and half-open lips convey a mood of inner conflict and contemplation, as if the subject is caught in a dialogue with the self.
Use of Color
The blue–pink gradient of the hair and the layered interplay of yellow, red, and pink on the face form striking chromatic collisions. These tonal shifts suggest a spectrum of emotions, oscillating between tenderness, melancholy, and defiance. The face becomes less a literal likeness than a map of emotional states, its surface alive with the vibrations of color.
Form and Distortion
The elongated neck and the ambiguous, hand-like form beneath it intentionally disrupt anatomical proportion. This distortion introduces a surrealist quality, extending the body into the realm of the spiritual and psychological. The stretched form externalizes the subject’s inner turmoil, transforming private emotion into visible, almost sculptural, imagery.
Background and Atmosphere
The backdrop of dark, layered blues is both heavy and fluid, resembling a dense emotional curtain. This atmospheric depth contrasts with the sharply lit contours of the figure, further isolating the subject. The dark background not only frames the portrait but also evokes the sensation of being immersed in an emotional abyss.
Symbolic and Emotional Meaning
The painting functions as a visualization of inner drama—a meditation on identity, self-awareness, and emotional awakening. Each distortion of line is a rupture of conventional thought, and each burst of color serves as a notation of shifting moods. Together, they create a portrait that transcends likeness to become a psychological and existential exploration of the human condition.
Pan Yuliang’s Self-Portrait
Uses exaggerated colors and fluid lines to project individuality. Similarity: Both works emphasize personal emotion over realism, translating inner identity into vibrant, subjective forms.
Shi Lu’s Looking Up to the High Mountain
Expresses profound emotion through dynamic brushwork and bold color contrasts. Similarity: Both works deploy intense pictorial language to break traditional paradigms, giving visual form to internal struggles.
Egon Schiele’s Death and the Maiden
Characterized by distorted anatomy and tense color usage to evoke psychological intensity. Similarity: Both works rely on distortion and chromatic force to express complex and unsettling emotional states.
Henri Matisse’s Dance
Uses bright colors and simplified contours to embody vitality and artistic freedom. Similarity: While differing in mood, both works share an emphasis on the expressiveness of color and liberation from realism, pursuing a more direct connection to human emotion and spirit.
The inspiration for this painting comes from an encounter on a street corner after a night of rain. The lights were dim, the pavement slick, and shallow pools carried broken reflections of neon. At the mouth of an alley stood a stranger, shoulders slightly hunched, his expression marked by a quiet indifference laced with defiance. Under the streetlamp’s amber glow, his face was split in two: one side softened by the shimmer of rain, the other receding into deep blue shadow—as if two natures coexisted upon a single visage.
What struck me was not the man’s features themselves, but the tension they held. In the city, people often bear this duality: the outward and the inward, the light and the shadow, submission and resistance. That fleeting moment crystallized into a symbolic image, one that eventually found its way onto the canvas.
The left side of the figure is rendered in cool blue, while the right side is shaded in warm red-orange, creating a striking dual contrast. This split of warm and cool tones suggests the subject’s inner conflict and struggle, while also adding a strong sense of psychological tension to the composition.
The neck is exaggeratedly elongated, giving the portrait an almost surreal posture. This break from conventional human proportions enhances the painting’s dramatic tension, while directing the viewer’s focus to the emotions and expressions on the face.
By using polarized tones of cool blue and warm red, the artist creates a fragmented facial expression that embodies a sense of division. Combined with abstract exaggeration of proportions, the work establishes a psychological narrative atmosphere, making it a perfect example of a “warm and cool contrast psychological abstract portrait.” This style also makes it well-suited as a decorative artwork for home or office spaces.
This piece stands out for its elongated form combined with split warm-cool tones, forming a highly recognizable visual signature. Such a style is rare in the online art market, particularly within the category of “contemporary avant-garde abstract portraits.” It is ideal for collectors looking to add a piece that highlights individuality and intellectual character within their space.
The figure’s expression conveys coldness and doubt, while the deep vertical blue brushstrokes in the background enhance the feeling of solitude and tension. This makes the piece an excellent choice not only for personal art collections, but also as a gift for friends who value introspection and emotional depth.
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More paintings from this series：
The makeup of desire 1 The makeup of desire 2 The makeup of desire 3 The makeup of desire 5
The makeup of desire 6 The makeup of desire 7 The makeup of desire 8 The makeup of desire 9
The makeup of desire 11 The makeup of desire 13 The makeup of desire 14
The makeup of desire 15 The makeup of desire 16 The makeup of desire 17
